Beating Old Horses...
This thing has been blogged to death already, but I would be remiss if I did chime in on it. So, here is your obligatory "WTF is he talking about?" blog.
John Kerry claims to have the "support" of "foreign leaders". He refuses to name names, nor will he reveal the substance such "support" will take. You could almost see the "aw shit!" look cross his visage a millisecond after the words were uttered, and the backpeddling has been almost comic. He has been called to task by the Bushies (rightly) to spill his guts because the public needs to know just who is trying to influence their voting behavior, why they want to do so, and because being open and honest is something that is expected (if not always realized) to be a quality of someone running for President. Of course, this is the party that gave us the Clintons, so so much for openess and honesty.
Kerry refuses to answer the question, in my opinion, for one of two reasons: a) He's full of shyte or b) association with the leaders he's talking about would be embarrassing, and quite possibly fatal.
If he's a liar, well, he might get away with that since the average American has an attention span measured in MPH and is usually easily distracted (Presidential Candidate lies to the press and public! Never mind, American Idol is on!). After all, this is the citizenry that bought the whole schmeer of everything being "just about sex", "vast right-wing conspiracies", etc, etc. Democrats will excuse it because all they care about is winning by any means necessary.
If there is "support" who is giving it? Jacques Chirac? Vladimir Putin? Gerhard Schroeder? We already know this A-list is a cynical and underhanded lot, so we can assume (with some trepidation) that perhaps this is the case. We can assume that Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il are rooting for Kerry. But what if we're not talking A-list leaders here? What if we're talking about Gail Fischbein-Ekklestein, President of the National Association for the Preservation of Dryer Lint? Perhaps the leader of some international NGO like Klaus-Heinz Dinglemeier, Chairman of the International Sexual Studies Collective? Jose Pilar-Gonzales-Ortega, Chief Executive of the Society for the Preservation of Spanish Rice? A hefty line up if ever I saw one.
The more Kerry continues to peddle this snake oil, the more he reminds me of Woody Harrelson in "Kingpin" --- a loser who must dodge his slumlord landlady on rent day, and when finally caught, must choose the lesser fo two evils --- being thrown out on his ear or taking the chain-smoking, varicose-ulcered wreck of womanhood to bed. You dance with who brung ya, ya know.
Saturday, March 20, 2004
Man of the People, Part 1...
Introducing a new feature of the Lunatic's Asylum! I will now record (as often as possible) indications that John Kerry is an idiot (as if you didn't know) and his team's probable attempts to straighten them out (i.e. spin them). I will not have to go looking for stuff, since Kerry usually can't stop talking and that provides all the ammo I need. To wit:
Kerry Calls Secret Service agent an SOB:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1101848/posts?page=74
Spin:
1. The snow was soft due to the Bush Administration's failure to adopt the Kyoto accords. Global warming creates crappy and dangerous snow, which is a danger to skiers and snowboarders all over the world. In the interests of recreational safety, John Kerry would not only push to have Kyoto ratified, he'd volunteer America for even more restrictive regulation.
2. Kerry did not "fall down" (Weebles are notorious for defying gravity, after all), he was attacked by a Bush operative disguised as a Secret Service agent. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to kill or seriously injure him prior to the election to keep him from winning the election and fulfilling his true destiny of implementing a communist utopia on American shores.
3. Kerry's use of the sobriquet "SOB" was something that slipped out in the "heat of the moment". It shows that Kerry is "passionate" about everything he does, and "competitive". Manly virtues if ever there were. Finally, a true "Alpha-Male".
Introducing a new feature of the Lunatic's Asylum! I will now record (as often as possible) indications that John Kerry is an idiot (as if you didn't know) and his team's probable attempts to straighten them out (i.e. spin them). I will not have to go looking for stuff, since Kerry usually can't stop talking and that provides all the ammo I need. To wit:
Kerry Calls Secret Service agent an SOB:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1101848/posts?page=74
Spin:
1. The snow was soft due to the Bush Administration's failure to adopt the Kyoto accords. Global warming creates crappy and dangerous snow, which is a danger to skiers and snowboarders all over the world. In the interests of recreational safety, John Kerry would not only push to have Kyoto ratified, he'd volunteer America for even more restrictive regulation.
2. Kerry did not "fall down" (Weebles are notorious for defying gravity, after all), he was attacked by a Bush operative disguised as a Secret Service agent. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to kill or seriously injure him prior to the election to keep him from winning the election and fulfilling his true destiny of implementing a communist utopia on American shores.
3. Kerry's use of the sobriquet "SOB" was something that slipped out in the "heat of the moment". It shows that Kerry is "passionate" about everything he does, and "competitive". Manly virtues if ever there were. Finally, a true "Alpha-Male".
Thursday, March 18, 2004
The Selective Application of Facts...or Memory.
I've got a pal, who considers himself a staunch Libertarian, and who, truth be told, is probably the smartest man I know. I very much respect anything he wants to discuss with me, even if I disagree with it, because even in the disagreement I can always find at at least one morsel to feed my short supply of brain cells. I'd like to think he believes the same of me, but honestly, if everyone debated the way this man did, we'd be a lot better off as human beings and as a nation.
That having been said, I have to take him to the woodshed for a second or two because of an e-mail I recently received from him regarding his thoughts on the recent change in government in Spain, it's relation to the international war against terrorism, and issues of civil liberties here at home.
Sam (I'll call him Sam for the moment) is big on civil liberties and free markets. He's also a big fan of Ayn Rand and Objectivist philosophy, which is probably why he usually makes sense. This time, however, I wonder what he's been smoking.
According to Sam, the recent terrorist events in Madrid were a direct result of American agression towards Islam and he also asks the question: "...if the Islamic "world" really does attack us ONLY out of hatred for our liberties, the actions of the neoconservatives a/k/a "Straussian neoJacobins" in rendering a few more pieces of...legislation like the "USA ZEALOT" act and a few more bureaucracies like the Department of Fatherland (In)Security should render us immune from any further assault, by having then removed any vestiges of the condition that originally fomented such "hatred". After all, how can THEY "hate us for our freedoms" if we no longer have any? (Gee, I feel safer already.)"
I've been seeing an awful lot of this from libertarians lately.
Okay, let's review some history for a second. Spain was conquered by Islamic armies from North Africa (mostly Berbers) in more-or-less 714 AD. The reasons for the invasion were simply plunder, slavery, religious fanaticism, and because Spain was an easy target, as were the Balkans, Sicily, Southern Italy, Greece and the remnants of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe (although Byzantium would stand until 1258). Internecine Christian warfare and political disorganization enabled a desert raider folk to invade and conquer vast areas of Europe without serious resistance being offered. Thirty-odd years later, at the Battle of Poitiers, Islam met it's first serious challenge in the form of Charles Martel and his army, which sent the Andalusians reeling back into Spain, keeping France safe for surrender to the Germans for another 1,300 years. The Spanish Reconquista, in which Christian Spaniards and Portugese began to recover their ancestral lands from invaders,started around 1300 and did not end until 1492, by which time Christians had found more exciting things to do than go on Crusades, like cross oceans and find continents previously undiscovered by other peoples of similar technical achievement. I also submit that the First Crusade was launched in 1096, more or less 300 years after Spain had been under Islamic rule, and that was led by the French. Most of the other crusades that followed failed spectacularly, unless they were directed against other Christians (Byzantium) or Jews. The need to invade other Christian lands or engage in pogroms being a predisposition in the Germans, apparently. However, I digress.
According to the Koran, once a land has felt the yoke of Sharia law, it must not be allowed to fall to the Infidel, and should that ever happen, then it is the duty of every Muslim to retake that land by any means possible. In the 20th Century, since most Muslim nations cannot muster enough military power to burn calories, let alone take on a 4th rate power like Spain, this has taken the form of unchecked immigration, political agitation and appeal to collective guilt. Last week someone, and it may have been Basque seperatists (at this point it does indeed look that way, the Islamic references and evidence being found is just too pat), decided that political rhetoric, historical grievance and (possibly) religious dogma had to be backed up with 200 dead folks on trains.
So, Islamonazis had a reason to do what they did (if they did it) for reasons OTHER than Spain's alliance with the United States in the War on Terror. Of course, the idea that Spain was invaded first and then reclaimed THEIR OWN ancestral lands never enters the argument. Thirty years of Islamic rhetoric about the evils of Western Civilization and the Kruschev-like taunts of "we will bury you" from the mullahs never enter the picture. The point is to grasp at straws for reasons to oppose this particular war, or more precisely, THIS particular President.
Second item on the agenda, and I have discussed this at length many a time. For anyone who still lives under the impression that John Ashcroft is Heinrich Himmler reborn, armed with a Night and Fog Decree, and the technilogical and military power of the world's remaining superpower behind him, think again. The USA Patriot Act mostly restores powers and processes that had been taken away from Federal law enforcement over the last 30 years. It relaxes some (but not all) of the requirements for reasonable cause in the application of and obtaining of search warrants, it removes some restrictions on the use of electronic eavesdropping, true, but there is still the requirement that the government show just cause none the less.
Habeas Corpus has not been revoked. The rights guarenteed under the Constitution have not been revoked. The judicial system has not been rendered useless. Americans are not being rounded up and sent to gulags on "suspicions" and denied due process of law. Firing squads are not roaming the streets.
In fact, the US Government was already legally eavesdropping on folks, monitoring their communications, et. al, long before anyone KNEW they were. Anyone remember Predator, the NSA system that could read your e-mail, listen to you telephone calls and read a fax while it was still in transit, among other things? Did anyone know it existed prior to the French making an international cause celebre out of it in the early 90's? The point is, the government was doing all this stuff already and people, even child pornographers and drug dealers, were not being rounded up en masse.
So, if the government is listening to your phone calls, decides nothing is wrong with it and that you do not pose a security risk, are not involved in a criminal enterprise or plotting the overthrow of the government, and then leaves you alone, were your civil liberties violated? No harm, no foul, right? If there were a criminal proceeding or an arrest, perhaps yes. But I'm not a lawyer, so I don't think so.
So Sam, one more time. The bombs in Spain were not the result of American involvement in Iraq. They were the result of someone with an axe to grind against the Spanish in particular or the West in general, and they managed to get a government overthrown in the process. Having been to Spain many times and having respect for the Spanish people, I can tell you from experience that the resulting losses to the conseratives were from fear. That's what terrorists do --- breed fear and doubt. It will only be a matter of time before another European government is targeted for overthrow (over and above the voluntary surrender to the EU) because the lessons learned are: you can get your way if you kill enough folks and there is no fear of retaliation.
The Spanish were not brave in this instance; they caved. But that's Spain's problem and it was always Spain's issue, not America's, and it certainly was not because of the Patriot Act.
I've got a pal, who considers himself a staunch Libertarian, and who, truth be told, is probably the smartest man I know. I very much respect anything he wants to discuss with me, even if I disagree with it, because even in the disagreement I can always find at at least one morsel to feed my short supply of brain cells. I'd like to think he believes the same of me, but honestly, if everyone debated the way this man did, we'd be a lot better off as human beings and as a nation.
That having been said, I have to take him to the woodshed for a second or two because of an e-mail I recently received from him regarding his thoughts on the recent change in government in Spain, it's relation to the international war against terrorism, and issues of civil liberties here at home.
Sam (I'll call him Sam for the moment) is big on civil liberties and free markets. He's also a big fan of Ayn Rand and Objectivist philosophy, which is probably why he usually makes sense. This time, however, I wonder what he's been smoking.
According to Sam, the recent terrorist events in Madrid were a direct result of American agression towards Islam and he also asks the question: "...if the Islamic "world" really does attack us ONLY out of hatred for our liberties, the actions of the neoconservatives a/k/a "Straussian neoJacobins" in rendering a few more pieces of...legislation like the "USA ZEALOT" act and a few more bureaucracies like the Department of Fatherland (In)Security should render us immune from any further assault, by having then removed any vestiges of the condition that originally fomented such "hatred". After all, how can THEY "hate us for our freedoms" if we no longer have any? (Gee, I feel safer already.)"
I've been seeing an awful lot of this from libertarians lately.
Okay, let's review some history for a second. Spain was conquered by Islamic armies from North Africa (mostly Berbers) in more-or-less 714 AD. The reasons for the invasion were simply plunder, slavery, religious fanaticism, and because Spain was an easy target, as were the Balkans, Sicily, Southern Italy, Greece and the remnants of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe (although Byzantium would stand until 1258). Internecine Christian warfare and political disorganization enabled a desert raider folk to invade and conquer vast areas of Europe without serious resistance being offered. Thirty-odd years later, at the Battle of Poitiers, Islam met it's first serious challenge in the form of Charles Martel and his army, which sent the Andalusians reeling back into Spain, keeping France safe for surrender to the Germans for another 1,300 years. The Spanish Reconquista, in which Christian Spaniards and Portugese began to recover their ancestral lands from invaders,started around 1300 and did not end until 1492, by which time Christians had found more exciting things to do than go on Crusades, like cross oceans and find continents previously undiscovered by other peoples of similar technical achievement. I also submit that the First Crusade was launched in 1096, more or less 300 years after Spain had been under Islamic rule, and that was led by the French. Most of the other crusades that followed failed spectacularly, unless they were directed against other Christians (Byzantium) or Jews. The need to invade other Christian lands or engage in pogroms being a predisposition in the Germans, apparently. However, I digress.
According to the Koran, once a land has felt the yoke of Sharia law, it must not be allowed to fall to the Infidel, and should that ever happen, then it is the duty of every Muslim to retake that land by any means possible. In the 20th Century, since most Muslim nations cannot muster enough military power to burn calories, let alone take on a 4th rate power like Spain, this has taken the form of unchecked immigration, political agitation and appeal to collective guilt. Last week someone, and it may have been Basque seperatists (at this point it does indeed look that way, the Islamic references and evidence being found is just too pat), decided that political rhetoric, historical grievance and (possibly) religious dogma had to be backed up with 200 dead folks on trains.
So, Islamonazis had a reason to do what they did (if they did it) for reasons OTHER than Spain's alliance with the United States in the War on Terror. Of course, the idea that Spain was invaded first and then reclaimed THEIR OWN ancestral lands never enters the argument. Thirty years of Islamic rhetoric about the evils of Western Civilization and the Kruschev-like taunts of "we will bury you" from the mullahs never enter the picture. The point is to grasp at straws for reasons to oppose this particular war, or more precisely, THIS particular President.
Second item on the agenda, and I have discussed this at length many a time. For anyone who still lives under the impression that John Ashcroft is Heinrich Himmler reborn, armed with a Night and Fog Decree, and the technilogical and military power of the world's remaining superpower behind him, think again. The USA Patriot Act mostly restores powers and processes that had been taken away from Federal law enforcement over the last 30 years. It relaxes some (but not all) of the requirements for reasonable cause in the application of and obtaining of search warrants, it removes some restrictions on the use of electronic eavesdropping, true, but there is still the requirement that the government show just cause none the less.
Habeas Corpus has not been revoked. The rights guarenteed under the Constitution have not been revoked. The judicial system has not been rendered useless. Americans are not being rounded up and sent to gulags on "suspicions" and denied due process of law. Firing squads are not roaming the streets.
In fact, the US Government was already legally eavesdropping on folks, monitoring their communications, et. al, long before anyone KNEW they were. Anyone remember Predator, the NSA system that could read your e-mail, listen to you telephone calls and read a fax while it was still in transit, among other things? Did anyone know it existed prior to the French making an international cause celebre out of it in the early 90's? The point is, the government was doing all this stuff already and people, even child pornographers and drug dealers, were not being rounded up en masse.
So, if the government is listening to your phone calls, decides nothing is wrong with it and that you do not pose a security risk, are not involved in a criminal enterprise or plotting the overthrow of the government, and then leaves you alone, were your civil liberties violated? No harm, no foul, right? If there were a criminal proceeding or an arrest, perhaps yes. But I'm not a lawyer, so I don't think so.
So Sam, one more time. The bombs in Spain were not the result of American involvement in Iraq. They were the result of someone with an axe to grind against the Spanish in particular or the West in general, and they managed to get a government overthrown in the process. Having been to Spain many times and having respect for the Spanish people, I can tell you from experience that the resulting losses to the conseratives were from fear. That's what terrorists do --- breed fear and doubt. It will only be a matter of time before another European government is targeted for overthrow (over and above the voluntary surrender to the EU) because the lessons learned are: you can get your way if you kill enough folks and there is no fear of retaliation.
The Spanish were not brave in this instance; they caved. But that's Spain's problem and it was always Spain's issue, not America's, and it certainly was not because of the Patriot Act.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Stupid is as stupid does...
From the Associated Press:
"A 23-year-old man tried to commit suicide by nailing himslf to a cross, the Associated Press reports from Hartland, Maine:
Lt. Pierre Boucher said the man took two pieces of wood, nailed them together in the form of a cross and placed them on the floor. He attached a suicide sign to the wood and then proceeded to nail one of his hands to the makeshift cross using a 14-penny nail and a hammer.
"When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911," Boucher said.
It was unclear whether the man was seeking assistance for his injury or help in nailing down his other hand."
He'll probably vote for Kerry...
From the Associated Press:
"A 23-year-old man tried to commit suicide by nailing himslf to a cross, the Associated Press reports from Hartland, Maine:
Lt. Pierre Boucher said the man took two pieces of wood, nailed them together in the form of a cross and placed them on the floor. He attached a suicide sign to the wood and then proceeded to nail one of his hands to the makeshift cross using a 14-penny nail and a hammer.
"When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911," Boucher said.
It was unclear whether the man was seeking assistance for his injury or help in nailing down his other hand."
He'll probably vote for Kerry...
Trees for the Forest, Part Deux....
Take a look at this pablum in the Guardian of London:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1170977,00.html
Talk about MISSING the point...
Spain got hit because the terrorists have learned that carrying their war against the West to American shores gets you arrested, killed or invaded.
Europe will now get hit because the Islamonazis have taken X-rays and discovered that most European governments have no spines. Most European governments have no brains, either, because they have all missed the BIG POINT; this war is not one of America versus the Islamic world, it is the Islamic world against WESTERN CIVILIZATION as a whole. The Islamofascists will not quit until we're all living under Sharia law or they're all dead. Guess which will happen first?
Why some people continue to believe that America is the biggest bugbear on the planet is way beyond me. You kinda expect this kind of puke to show up in the Guardian or the NYT, but this is stupidity beyond even those publication's usual exacting standards for such.
For a bunch of folks who are supposed to be journalists, they don't seem to listen very well, nor are they objective. The Islamofascists have been shouting it from the rooftops for the last 20 years that they consider themselves at war with the West (all of it), despite the fact that the West (and especially the United States) has done more to protect Muslims from the dangers of Soviet Communism (Afghanistan), other Westerners (Bosnia) and other Islamic nations (Iraq, twice) to warrant such hatred.
The "Death to the West, Death to the Great Satan" mantra has been the buzzword of a movement that began with Khomeini in the late 70's and has continued to this day. It was laying just under the surface since Nasser, and just took an Iranian nincompoop to formally initiate the program. What is the source of this hatred? Is it Israel? Partly, but not for religious reasons -- Israel is hated because it is something the Arab states can never be: a secular, prosperous, democratic society that even extends rights to those that would destroy it from within. Do they hate us because of our "imperialistic, hegemonic" ways? Well, if I were French, British, Italian, Spanish or Russian, I would say yes, but AMERICA? I don't remember American colonies or spheres of influence in the region since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, can you?
This hatred is pathological and it revolves around something incredibly simple, which is why some of our more "nuanced" allies, politicians and "journalists" miss it all the time: The West creates. The West liberates. The West enriches. The West holds up the freedom of the individual as the highest achievement of mankind. Islam requires submission, abject surrender to a code that would make a dedicated Communist blush with envy. Islam cannot survive without submission and the influences of the West (and America as the epitome of Western Civilization) constantly tempting it's faithful. Western Civ and everything about it, in it or surrounding it, threatens the existing order of everything "the Prophet" created, and which sustains an entire class of individuals who hold power because of it. This is the danger to Islam and this is why Westerners must be destroyed: Khomieni's, Husseins, Assad's, et. al, cannot allow freedom because to do so signs their own death warrant.
Don't believe me? Just listen to what they're saying. That seems simple enough, doesn't it?
Talk about missing the trees for the forest.
Take a look at this pablum in the Guardian of London:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1170977,00.html
Talk about MISSING the point...
Spain got hit because the terrorists have learned that carrying their war against the West to American shores gets you arrested, killed or invaded.
Europe will now get hit because the Islamonazis have taken X-rays and discovered that most European governments have no spines. Most European governments have no brains, either, because they have all missed the BIG POINT; this war is not one of America versus the Islamic world, it is the Islamic world against WESTERN CIVILIZATION as a whole. The Islamofascists will not quit until we're all living under Sharia law or they're all dead. Guess which will happen first?
Why some people continue to believe that America is the biggest bugbear on the planet is way beyond me. You kinda expect this kind of puke to show up in the Guardian or the NYT, but this is stupidity beyond even those publication's usual exacting standards for such.
For a bunch of folks who are supposed to be journalists, they don't seem to listen very well, nor are they objective. The Islamofascists have been shouting it from the rooftops for the last 20 years that they consider themselves at war with the West (all of it), despite the fact that the West (and especially the United States) has done more to protect Muslims from the dangers of Soviet Communism (Afghanistan), other Westerners (Bosnia) and other Islamic nations (Iraq, twice) to warrant such hatred.
The "Death to the West, Death to the Great Satan" mantra has been the buzzword of a movement that began with Khomeini in the late 70's and has continued to this day. It was laying just under the surface since Nasser, and just took an Iranian nincompoop to formally initiate the program. What is the source of this hatred? Is it Israel? Partly, but not for religious reasons -- Israel is hated because it is something the Arab states can never be: a secular, prosperous, democratic society that even extends rights to those that would destroy it from within. Do they hate us because of our "imperialistic, hegemonic" ways? Well, if I were French, British, Italian, Spanish or Russian, I would say yes, but AMERICA? I don't remember American colonies or spheres of influence in the region since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, can you?
This hatred is pathological and it revolves around something incredibly simple, which is why some of our more "nuanced" allies, politicians and "journalists" miss it all the time: The West creates. The West liberates. The West enriches. The West holds up the freedom of the individual as the highest achievement of mankind. Islam requires submission, abject surrender to a code that would make a dedicated Communist blush with envy. Islam cannot survive without submission and the influences of the West (and America as the epitome of Western Civilization) constantly tempting it's faithful. Western Civ and everything about it, in it or surrounding it, threatens the existing order of everything "the Prophet" created, and which sustains an entire class of individuals who hold power because of it. This is the danger to Islam and this is why Westerners must be destroyed: Khomieni's, Husseins, Assad's, et. al, cannot allow freedom because to do so signs their own death warrant.
Don't believe me? Just listen to what they're saying. That seems simple enough, doesn't it?
Talk about missing the trees for the forest.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
The People are Sheep...
Found this interesting, and decided to comment. You can find it here: http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/129240-2413-010.html
Now, why the good people of Minnesota feel it is necessary to tell folks how to feed themselves properly is beyond me. I can see, perhaps, the argument being made that welfare money is given to those deemed worthy so that they might do something responsible with it, i.e. indulging in healthy eating habits, and not, let's say, gorging oneself on Dorito's and Devil Dogs.
Then again, it should also occur to those who wish to lead by the nose that the people being given the welfare money in the first place very often cannot be commended on their personal choices to begin with. If you're a crack-addicted, mother of four by way of multiple sexual partners, it can be resaonably be assumed that if you're profligate with your sexual organs, then MSG content in your potato chips is not high on your list of priorities.
But of course, someone has already figured this out. Someone, somewhere, in the Minnesota governmental (and we do mean mental) structure (I'd bet on a woman) has finally ascertained the single, universal truth, vis-a-vis most welfare recipients: they're typically dumber than dogshit. Stupid people must be told what to do and coerced to make the proper decisions before they do something inconvenient, like die in the street in large numbers or turn to crime. Therefore, we start by telling them what to eat.
Let's first define the relative merits of the word poverty. Are America's poor living at near-starvation levels like the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa? No. Are they picking through garbage dumps looking for cabbage leaves or animal dung looking for undigested seeds, like they do in Central America? Certainly not. Are they dying in droves of tropical diseases and as the result of tribal and religious warfare, say like in South-East Asia and the Middle East? Hell no.
According to the census bureau, a great number of the people we classify as "poor" own their own home. They typically have cable and color television, air conditioning and at least one car. They have access to public-supported education and health care, food stamps, mass-transit subsidies and have their "poverty" counted a s a virtue when enrolling in college.
Quite simply, we do not have poor people in this country. What we have is stupid, lazy, unmotivated people lying around on the public dole. When you live in a society that affords the opportunities and privledges this one does, you have no excuse for collecting a government check. Get off your fat behind and work for a living.
However, this does not give government the right to tell you what you can eat. It is just another example of the nanny-state gone wild: we must protect people from their own stupidity, therefore, we can tell you what to do. It's only a short step from telling you what to eat to whom you may vote for, what you may learn in school and, eventually, what you can do and when you can do it. But that's the point, isn't it -- to create sucessive generations of mindless robots that reflexively do what Big Brother tells them to?
Found this interesting, and decided to comment. You can find it here: http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/129240-2413-010.html
Now, why the good people of Minnesota feel it is necessary to tell folks how to feed themselves properly is beyond me. I can see, perhaps, the argument being made that welfare money is given to those deemed worthy so that they might do something responsible with it, i.e. indulging in healthy eating habits, and not, let's say, gorging oneself on Dorito's and Devil Dogs.
Then again, it should also occur to those who wish to lead by the nose that the people being given the welfare money in the first place very often cannot be commended on their personal choices to begin with. If you're a crack-addicted, mother of four by way of multiple sexual partners, it can be resaonably be assumed that if you're profligate with your sexual organs, then MSG content in your potato chips is not high on your list of priorities.
But of course, someone has already figured this out. Someone, somewhere, in the Minnesota governmental (and we do mean mental) structure (I'd bet on a woman) has finally ascertained the single, universal truth, vis-a-vis most welfare recipients: they're typically dumber than dogshit. Stupid people must be told what to do and coerced to make the proper decisions before they do something inconvenient, like die in the street in large numbers or turn to crime. Therefore, we start by telling them what to eat.
Let's first define the relative merits of the word poverty. Are America's poor living at near-starvation levels like the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa? No. Are they picking through garbage dumps looking for cabbage leaves or animal dung looking for undigested seeds, like they do in Central America? Certainly not. Are they dying in droves of tropical diseases and as the result of tribal and religious warfare, say like in South-East Asia and the Middle East? Hell no.
According to the census bureau, a great number of the people we classify as "poor" own their own home. They typically have cable and color television, air conditioning and at least one car. They have access to public-supported education and health care, food stamps, mass-transit subsidies and have their "poverty" counted a s a virtue when enrolling in college.
Quite simply, we do not have poor people in this country. What we have is stupid, lazy, unmotivated people lying around on the public dole. When you live in a society that affords the opportunities and privledges this one does, you have no excuse for collecting a government check. Get off your fat behind and work for a living.
However, this does not give government the right to tell you what you can eat. It is just another example of the nanny-state gone wild: we must protect people from their own stupidity, therefore, we can tell you what to do. It's only a short step from telling you what to eat to whom you may vote for, what you may learn in school and, eventually, what you can do and when you can do it. But that's the point, isn't it -- to create sucessive generations of mindless robots that reflexively do what Big Brother tells them to?
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